Travel past Mason Field on Elm Street in Attleboro Falls this weekend and you won't see football or baseball being played. Instead, several dozen cardboard boxes are stationed on the field, serving as temporary homes for almost 100 teenagers from many area churches.

In marking the fourth year of Attleboro Area Homelessness Awareness Weekend, these teenagers are making a definitive stand on behalf of the homeless and hungry in the community. Most are willing to endure near-freezing weather for two nights- without a change of clothes and minus cell phones, iPods and other modern devices and conveniences- while earning money from pledges received from family, relatives and others to help the homeless.

It is the first time the event has been held at this field thanks to coordination among Don McClain, the Attleboro Area Council of Churches volunteer youth coordinator and the North Attleboro Park and Recreation Dept, and Fire and Police Departments.

"We started with 40 kids and 15 chaperones and are now up to 100 young people and at least 25 chaperones," said McClain, also a Rehoboth Congregational Youth Group Advisor often credited with starting the event. "It actually began after the kids at the church went on a mission to Washington, D.C. and saw so many homeless people there," he insists. "They encouraged this event to happen."

Besides Rehoboth Congregational, the weekend event spread to include other youth church groups this weekend: Evangelical Covenant Church, Candleberry Chapel and St. John the Evangelist Church, all of Attleboro; Seekonk Memorial Baptist Church; Wrentham Congregational Church, and Grace Episcopal Church and St. Mark's Church of North Attleboro, all participated.

Sarah Tenglin and Bradford Cederberg of the Evangelical Covenant Church offered their perspectives on the event.

"My eyes completely widened after our youth group went on a mission trip to New York and I saw a bunch of homeless people," said Tenglin, a Norton HS senior. "So I am here to try to get the message across about homelessness. We are even more fortunate than some of the homeless because some of them don't even have cardboard, live in cars or don't have somebody to help them set up."

Cederberg, a senior at Dighton-Rehoboth High School, says the experience "hit home with all of us. I have learned that all of us are always one or two steps away from being homeless, for medical or other reasons." And he has seen examples of homelessness. "Near where my father works, I have seen some use shopping carts and they sleep underneath them."

Grace Episcopal Church member Zackery Leman, a senior at Moses Brown School and North Attleboro resident, says "it was a very interesting experience last year to get a feel of what it was like to feel homeless and the cold temperatures despite soaking rains that made the boxes fall apart a bit. I want to do everything I can to better society."

Austin White, accompanied by his father, John, from the Rehoboth Congregational Church was primed for his first experience. Austin, a freshman at Tri-County Regional in Franklin, was dressed in gym shorts and a T-shirt as they prepared their boxes.

"I needed to do a community project for school and I thought this would be a good thing to do," Austin said. His father, who will also sleep outside in a cardboard box both nights, added: "We are not from a rich family, far from it," he says. "We would like to do everything we can to raise the awareness of the homeless in our country. So many people are suffering."

Advisors of the Wrentham Congregational youth group noted several more members participating this year compared to last. Nancy Symmes, Melanie Steinbracher and Kera Kent-James were all anxious to camp out for the first time. "Í thought it would be nice to help the homeless people because I have seen some of them," said Kera.

The weekend will also involve participants directly serving the homeless, soliciting cash or food donations, serving meals and other activities. Wearing either green, yellow or light blue T-shirts sporting 'There's No Place Like Home' and 'Homeless Awareness  Weekend 2010' below, the youth and adult volunteers and chaperones will be hard to miss.

The Rehoboth Youth Group will be distributing bag lunches to Our Daily Bread in Taunton that city's local food pantry and will also be serving dinner at the First Baptist Church in Attleboro. St Mark's Youth Group is making 75 bag lunches for distribution at Cross Roads in Providence. Members of Central Congregational will be panhandling, though they will return any donations they receive to turn over to funds helping the homeless.

On being asked why this is organized as a two-night event rather than one-day like most organizations do nationwide, McClain says "the first night might be fun, but after the second night the effect of what it really feels like to be homeless really sets in."

"I have done a lot of research about all the homeless events across the country and we are already one of the largest, especially for two-night events," McClain says. What motivates him to continue is simple: "I am shocked by the homeless and hungry in this country, especially in this economy."

But if these teenagers are not jolted into reality this weekend by experiencing what many homeless people face every day, then perhaps the ecumenical service held on Friday night had more of an effect.  They heard from their peers who rose individually to announce how mental and physical health and illness as well as graduation rates and other afflictions were dramatically higher among homeless people. 

They also heard Walter Spencer, Executive Director of Jeremiah Inn: Residential Recovery Program for Men in Worcester speak. But a simple, heartfelt speech by a former homeless person, 'John', might have made the most lasting impression.

"Someone stole my pickup truck and my tools," 'John' said of his life-changing episode six years ago. "So now I can't pay the rent and I was put out on the street. So I went into the weeds so the cops couldn't see me and went to sleep…. Then I went to "Tent City" (in Attleboro) where I couldn't look for a job because I couldn't wash or take a shower or change my clothes.  Then Sue Smith at Home with Hearts found me an apartment and helped me get a job."

McClain says that individuals, businesses or places of worship interested in making contributions for the causes of homelessness and hunger could do the following: "They could stop by Mason Field and make a cash or (canned) food donation; send a check to the Attleboro Area Council of Churches, 95 Pine St., or contribute to the Dunkin' Donuts on South Main Street in Attleboro.